How To Win The US Presidency
Last night I watched a documentary called and on HOW TO WIN THE US PRESIDENCY. In surveying the Presidents from Washington to Obama, though referred to the 46th President Donald Trump, the programme identified the following requirements to reach the Oval Office:
1) Money
2) Message
3) Look
4) Family
5) Religion
Having seen the programme I now better understand the result that confounded pollsters and analysts on Tuesday/Wednesday. Trump either had more of these factors or Hillary Clinton less. He clearly has money and an extended family but where he really triumphed was message. His slogan of making America great again was identical to that of President Ronald Reagan. Some have compared Trump to Reagan but the latter had experience of office as a two-term governor of California. What they did share is the intuitive ability to tap into the mood of a significant group, the disaffected white disenfranchised from a ruling establishment. Hillary Clinton fought a negative campaign attacking Trump for his philandering, but this did not estrange his constituency. I was particularly struck by the observation that the successful candidate must be like everybody else but different. This is quintessentially Trump, billionaire property developer but one of the boys.
The pollsters got it spectacularly wrong. One historian referred to the election of President Nixon when hardly one person would admit to voting for him. Clearly voters regard their choice as a private matter or in the case of Trump had not voted before. Either way the poll prediction was quite wrong. John Pargiter said you could get Trump to win at 5-1 on the Monday.
The programme drew comparisons with Imperial Rome: the symbol of the eagle and above all the rhetoric. Cicero was one of the great orators of any age. On money, Julius Caesar paid off one troublemaker engaged by Sulla with two sacks of silver and spent most of his career in massive debt. Looking at previous incumbents, Trump was not the first candidate to have to deal with sexual scandal. Warren Harding and Grover Cleveland had illegitimate children whilst Jack Kennedy, though it did not emerge at the time, could not keep his trousers on. Interestingly he had the look though afflicted by severe pain from a back condition.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump majored on religion. Al Smith was unsuccessful because he was a devout Catholic though this not affect Kennedy. Jimmy Carter was a born again Christian. This seems to be less of an issue but the programme emphasised that at heart America is conservative, religious country. Commentators can mock Trump but future candidates will ignore his “ticking of the boxes” at their peril.
